Moved by Public, States Seek To Curb Youth Violence

Responding both to the gravity of the problem and to a growing
public outcry, an increasing number of states are taking action to curb
youth violence.

Although it in the past has usually been viewed as the
responsibility of local officials, the issue of children carrying guns
and committing violence in school or on the streets has moved to the
top of states' agendas, with three governors calling special
legislative sessions to enact new laws and a number of states creating
state-level task forces.

The latest such effort is by Gov. Lawton Chiles of Florida, who next
week will open a special session of the legislature to address, as one
of its issues, gun control for juveniles.

Governor Chiles called for the special session shortly after
national attention focused on the murder of a British tourist at a
highway rest stop in his state, allegedly by a group of youths ages 13
to 16.

Lawmakers in both Colorado and Utah, meanwhile, outlawed handgun
possession for those under age 18 in their recent special sessions.
(See Education Week, Sept. 15 and Oct. 20, 1993.)

"In the regular four-month legislative session, issues tend to get
lost,'' Gov. Roy Romer of Colorado wrote in a New York Times opinion
piece last week. "[Colorado's] special session put a glaring spotlight
on juvenile violence.''

In addition to the ban on guns, Mr. Romer also signed into law nine
other bills relating to juvenile violence. They include measures to
stiffen the prison sentences for juveniles guilty of violent crimes and
to require parents to appear in court with their children.

Mandatory Sentences Ordered

One goal of the Florida special session, said John Fuller, a policy
coordinator for Governor Chiles, is to make it a crime for a minor to
possess a firearm.

Mr. Fuller noted, however, that Florida would probably not include a
provision in the Colorado handgun law that mandates a five-day jail
sentence for a first-time offender.

A mandatory sentence for a status offense--an act that is a crime
for juveniles but not adults--runs afoul of federal juvenile-justice
regulations, Mr. Fuller said.

A Colorado official conceded that the new state law violates federal
guidelines, but only for the small proportion of juvenile offenders who
are not charged with some other offense, such as carrying a concealed
weapon or drug possession.

Other legislative responses to youth and school violence have been
proposed in Massachusetts and Virginia and enacted in Oregon, which
last month made it a felony to carry a firearm into a school or other
public building. (See Education Week, Oct. 6, 1993.)

In North Carolina, the legislature adopted a number of
recommendations put forward by a task force of top state officials,
which called for such steps as making it a crime to have a firearm on
school property or for a minor to have a handgun.

Task forces appointed by the chief state school officers in Georgia
and New Jersey are also currently studying the issue of violence in
school.

The need for state-level involvement on youth violence is so
pressing that the National Association of State Boards of Education
plans next year to convene a study group to investigate the issue and
make recommendations for action.

"Violence is very much a concern for our members right now,'' said
Katherine Fraser, a senior associate at NASBE.

Pointing to the spate of violence statewide that prompted the
Colorado special session, Kathy Christie of the Denver-based Education
Commission of the States said action on the state level occurs "when
there has been so much of it that it seems all-pervasive.''

"A [school] district can't necessarily influence when students are
coming from other districts with weapons,'' she said, but state
officials can.

The New Jersey task force has relied on support from Commissioner of
Education Mary Lee Fitzgerald and Gov. James J. Florio to be able to
mobilize resources across agencies and consider policies consistent
across the state's 611 school districts, said Superintendent Philip E.
Geiger of the Piscataway Township schools, who heads the task
force.

Mr. Geiger said his 35-member task force, which includes parents,
students, educators, prosecutors, and social-service providers, is
trying to make schools "a place of hope'' by ridding them of violence
and vandalism without creating "throwaway kids'' who are worse off when
they are kicked out of the school system.

"This would not have been possible to do on a
school-district-by-school-district basis,'' he said.

State-Level Action Stressed

"The state-level involvement is extremely important,'' said George
E. Butterfield, the deputy director of the National School Safety
Center.

"You have the possibility of getting some very important things,''
he said, such as state funding for strategies dealing with school crime
and violence and mandates for uniform reporting of school crime
statewide.

Such reforms have been made in North Carolina, which recently
directed local school boards to report acts of school violence to the
state board of education.

North Carolina is making available $3.5 million this fall for grants
to districts that come up with innovative local programs to make school
safe for students and employees. In addition, it is opening a statewide
resource center for the prevention of school violence, to be headed by
a former high school principal.

In Georgia, Gov. Zell Miller last month proposed a comprehensive
school-safety plan that would ban possession of handguns by minors,
require youths between the ages of 13 and 17 who are charged with
violent crimes to be tried as adults, and provide $10 million from
state-lottery proceeds to local school systems for purchase of metal
detectors, monitoring devices, and other safety equipment.

"I am afraid that in the not-too-distant future,'' Governor Miller
said in announcing the plan, "we will know that school has started when
we hear the sounds of gunshots and will measure the pace of the school
year by the deaths of students.''

But as states adopt tighter restrictions and tougher penalties, Mr.
Butterfield also urged that officials not ignore such factors as school
climate, parent-child relationships, and crisis-intervention
techniques.

"I don't see how you do that and come up with something that's
really going to help you in the long run,'' he said.

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